How to Send Text Messages Via Email for Free (SMS & MMS)

This may not be news for a lot of people, but I just discovered that you can send text messages via email to most major cellular providers. This tip is stellar in that it is part stupid frugal trick (save money on texting from your cell phone by emailing for free), part productivity (you can probably type faster from a normal QWERTY keyboard than a phone), and part tech geek. You get the three-fer on this one! Here’s how to do it.

SMS Vs. MMS

SMS, or Short Message Service is also commonly referred to as a “text message”. With a SMS, you can send a message of up to 160 characters to another device. Longer messages will automatically be split up into multiple texts. Most cell phones support this type of text messaging.

MMS, or Multimedia Messaging Service can be used to send longer messages and/or pictures, video, or audio content. It is most commonly used to send a photo taken with a camera phone to another phone. Most new cell phones with multimedia capabilities support MMS.

How to Send a Text Message Via Email (SMS & MMS):

To send a text message via email, you must use a SMS or MMS to email gateway. Just substitute a 10-digit cell number for ‘number’ for each carrier below:

Making the Most of Texting from Email:

To take this to the next level from a productivity standpoint, I’d recommend creating ‘contacts’ within your email account so that you aren’t constantly looking up all of those cell numbers that you don’t have memorized each time you send an email.

How to Add Cell Numbers for Text Messaging in Gmail Contacts:

In the following example, I’m going to add my mother’s cell to my gmail contacts. Let’s say that her phone provider is Verizon and her number is (555)123-4567. You should be able to set up contacts through most email programs (if you can’t, switch to gmail).

1. Click on ‘contacts’:

2. Now, add a new contact (in lower right corner):

3. Put in ‘name’ and the word ‘cell’ to clarify between email and cell contacts in both the Name and Nickname fields:

4. When composing a new text message, simply type in your contact’s name:

I just tried to text message from my “gmail” via @sms.mycricket.com and it wouldn’t work … I am REAL sure that I did exactly as “G.E. Miller” said … but the “text message” did not arrive at me phone.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks…

James

Mike

Been using this in our communications center for a few years now. If you are on email, simply address it to (the phone number) @ (put in the carriers text set up). Such as [email protected], tmomail.net, txt.att.net and so on. Sometime is works best to put short messages in the subject block. Others can send short messages in the body. All kinds of code follows, so keep signature blocks and such out. Also be aware some phones (like ATT) will not get email-2-text, when they are on their home network. Good luck. We cut calling all our firefighters in from 25 minutes to 30 second by building and email group. I have also heard it be used for school parent alerts. Just have to keep the numbers and carriers up to date.

MBBB

Keep your ignorance to yourself Ala frigging Ba Ba.In this country we try to be civil otherwise head to the nearest airport and do us all a big favor…..get out.

Ben

He did say “buddy” so that makes it okayer.

SharReese

But apparently, in this country we’re still racist af! Did it occur to you, 1. You have no idea where he was born based on 3 little letters, and 2. People are ruDE because they are rude, even, (GASP!) right here in good old’ America. Sometimes I wonder who people like you would have to hate if the continents never drifted apart…. simplton. Smh.

Milton

Can you reply to an SMS received from email?

Drew

Yes.

LT

You can use this trick for sending voice mail converted to text from your landline to a text instead of email. I personally do not check new emails to my personal email accounts as I get them but I do check my texts real time.

nathan

wait so can u send attachments like uhm. songs and stuff to people. lets say i want to send a song to my phone. but i dont have internet browser. i have unlimited text,pic and email. but im not sure if email texts bill as internet use. if it doesnt can i send stuff from my email to my phone?

nick

Nope, attachments seam to be removed (at least with verizon), though I expect you could text say an image back to the email and access it on the computer, so it’s somewhat of a one-way gate for attachments.

Someone

This is not true. You can send attachments. The extension is different thought. As for verizon it is [email protected]

Chesie

I tried sending someone a text message to boost moblie but it seems it didn work and I can’t tell them to send a message to my email. Any ideas? Anybody??

@Nathan – Haven’t tried attachments out yet. If it works and your provider doesn’t charge you, check back and let us know.

Braedon

waht about for criket?

Jodi

What about Boost mobile and other non contract phones?

booch221

All non-contract phone carriers (also known as MVNOs) in the US use one of the four major networks to carry their calls, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile or Sprint.

I use H2O Wireless which is an AT&T MVNO. So the [email protected] works for me. I have a friend who uses Black Wireless, another ATT MVNO and it works for him too. These are the only two I have tested, so I don’t know it it will work for others, but it’s worth a try.

You can also get an idea by comparing the coverage maps. If it is orange, it’s probably AT&T. If it’s pink it’s T-Mobile. Also, sometimes there is a Wikipedia article on the MVNO, which will tell you which network it uses.

big rick

Just want to understand.if I’m on Verizon do I create [email protected] for all my contacts or do I use there provider after there number for txt messages

Rick

In my Gmail contacts, I just added another custom field under phone numbers and called email text” and entered the contacts mobile number plus the extension there.

Hi! We are going to try to use this texting through email at my facility. It works, but there is a HUGE paragraph that automatically comes along with the message about confidentiality, etc. How can I get rid of this?

@Mary – That block of disclaimer text at the bottom of your emails is being automatically attached from some sort of email gateway service that IT has setup for your company. Other than sending the message from another external address, I doubt you’ll be able to get rid of it. You could ask them to exclude an address. Maybe request a shared mailbox that you could use for sending from? Just a thought…

CurtisB

Mr. Miller: Can I convert incoming text messages to my email, or resend them myself from my Tracfone to my email?

Kerry

How does the message show up on your cell bill? Or the receivers?

Chris

Is there anyway it can be sent anonymously…..I don’t want my name or number to show up to the receiver. Thanks, Chris

Gracie

i dont think so but it seems like you are hiding something

Gracie II

This is an anonymous sign up, we all are. And so what? People should be allowed some privacy.

wendy

we did this for our church, had to create a separate email acct., The email acct name shows up. when we first tested it, we used my email, my name was listed. so I don’t think you can do it anonymously.

Ben Wall

I can’t get the ATT text messages to work at the above address. Do I have to send out one message at a time?

Content of message would not go through for us at first.[email protected]
this did work.

Jessica

Hi! I know this has been here a while but I’m hoping someone is still around to help me! I’ve been trying to forward an email from my gmail account to my husband’s boost mobile. I’ve tried it with @myboostmobile.com, @sms.Myboostmobile.com,
@mms.myboostmobile.com. I even tried it without using the word my. Oh and I’ve put his 10 digits before all of them, of course. None of them have worked.I got mail delivery notices on the one without “my” and the one with “mms” stating they had permanently failed because there was no such domain. I didn’t receive one on the first two I listed here but they still didn’t go thru. Since Sprint has bought out Boost but didn’t change the name is it possible that I might should be using the one for Sprint. Also, I’ve already tried sending myself a text to my email because mine is boost as well, before anyone wants to be rude. Anyway, it didn’t work,something’s on my galaxy s3 are synced automatically so all it showed was my email stress. It looked like I emailed my own email account! Lol I really need too get him this email but I’m at a loss. As anybody out there? Can anyone help me please?! Even if you can’t have a blessed day and thanks for starting this in the first place, I’ve read thru the posts and learned several things I didn’t know, so I really appreciate you helping others! You must have some really great karma by now! Lol. I gotta laugh out I may just start screaming and break my phone!

Matt

Chris, when you send text messages from email, the text message will have your email address but it won’t have your phone number..is that what you’re asking? So the receiver will have whatever name your email is set up for but no number will be displayed. BTW, sending anonymous = fishy.

Tallen

Yes Matt – you should always disclose all your information when txting or emailing people. Name, address and phone number are very important that everyone knows whom they are talking with. To help people be more comfortable with you, also send you birth date, SSN, mothers maiden name, all credit card and bank account numbers and all pins. ( I really enjoy talking with stupid people.)

DT

Hey Matt – I’m commenting so much lately than this post (5 years) that everyone may have gone by now, but, thanks to this page, I tried it for the first time last night and it actually did show my e-mail address to the recipient. See my individual posting for more really interesting information about what I’ve learned and the 4-digit codes (someone has probably already mentioned this – lol).

And, Matt, some people are just jerks. You try to help and there’s always at least one person that has to say something nasty and can’t just be grateful for the info. Well, I am! All this information has been super helpful and opened a whole new world for my friends, because I refuse to pay for texting on my phone (have a great OLD plan-includes rollover mins.-lol) when I pay enough already for home computer internet service (no internet on my phone either)! This makes us both happy. I’m also not a person attached to my phone, so they can text to my e-mail, but know they aren’t necessarily going to get an immediate response if I’m away from my computer. LOVE IT!!! Thanks everyone!

Mike

THANKS Matt! for taking the time to post the info. I’ve done this b4 but it’s so few and far between (like leaving my cell phone at home) that I forget how to do it, so your post was great help AND your productivity idea was a great idea as well. Quote: “To take this to the next level from a productivity standpoint, I’d recommend creating ‘contacts’ within your email account so that you aren’t constantly looking up all of those cell numbers that you don’t have memorized each time you send an email.”

Aisl

This tip has been very useful and my friends receive my text I send from my e-mail, however, I am not receiving their text messages back to my e-mail I only receive this. “This mobile text message is brought to you by AT&T” but no message from my friends. What am I doing wrong?

Carole

I am having the same problem.
MOST of the time the emails to text work outgoing and incoming. But several times I’ve gotten the same message as AISL.

Has anyone been able to correct this?

Brian

Try having your husband text to your email and see if the reply address shows.

BillyBob

This is great to use, especially when you don’t have a phone. I do this all the time with my friends.

rajesh

I have a relience india mobile (RIM)-CDMA how can i use this method

And
also tel me BSNL also

I’m Fom UP-East, india

nikki

my girl has a metro pcs phone and i would like to send her msgs via email to her cell but would u please explain it in terms for dummies please. I’m not understanding exactly how or maybe u can just email me and explain better. thx im a lil slow to learn

Hey can someone help me find out the sms for movilnet? I can’t find anything! haha

Mav

Ok, so you send a text message from your email account to someone’s cell phone using the method you’ve described. And when they reply to that text, does their message come back to your email account?

lynn

yes!

Jane

Mav, no, if the recipient replies to the text, it will not come back to your email account.

Mav

Actually I’ve tried it since posting that comment, and their texts do come back to my Gmail account, which is vital for this to be a really useful future, so I’m definitely glad about that. One person even transitioned from responding by text, to signing into her gmail account to continue the conversation, and gmail seamlessly kept the conversation going in the same chat window for me. When she switched from her phone to gmail, it just started showing her name on each message instead of her phone number. And of course it’s all saved in my Gmail chat history. Gmail is smooth.

Here’s the more important question: how can I determine a person’s wireless carrier, if I can’t otherwise contact them to ask them? This is a legitimate need, because if I’m texting them from my Gmail account, it’s often because I can’t easily contact them another way. There are websites that allow you to input the number and they output the service that provided the number, with varying degrees of success, but I don’t know of any solution that really works well for this. If anyone knows of the best website for this, please post.

What about getting a reply from the person that you texted to. Is that possible? And if so, how do you do it?

Mav

@ Mike
When you text a person from Gmail, that person simply replies to that text. Their reply shows up in the Gmail chat window you’re using to text them, or as an email in your Gmail inbox.

Opuscroakus

UNLESS you set the reply-to feature to come back to your phone. The default feature of any e-mail is that the replies will go back to wherever you’ve mailed from. If you want the replies to go backto your phone, just set the reply-to feature as your phone # and its e-mail address.

And to all the dolts not bothering to read the rest of the thread before asking, ANY carrier is given an e-mail assignment. If you want to know what yours is, just e-mail yourself from your phone and pull the address in the ”from” field. It’s not rocket science.

Juan

HI,

Thanks for the blog, I have a question: I don’t have texting in my mobile device but I do have email. Following your instructions I could now sent txt via email, but How could other mobile devices that I have not send an email as txt send me a text? Ex. Say my friend only has my phone number and wants to send me a txt, how could they do this?

Help is appreciated

Thanks

Mav

Juan, so you’re saying that if your mobile device does not support texting and your friend only has your phone number, then how can he send you a text that you’ll somehow receive elsewhere? That I do not know of a way to do. I wish I had a service where all my text messages coming from and to my mobile phone number could be retrieved, archived, and sent online in addition to my own phone, and such a service would fit what you’re looking for as well. But I don’t know of such a service. However, if your friend also had your email address, he could simply send a text message from his phone to your email address. It’s the exact same thing as texting someone’s phone, but instead of sending the text to a phone number, he sends to your email address.

Update

I realize this is an old article, but still found it. In order to send messages to Verizon phones you will need to use “@vzwpix.com” instead of “@vtext.com”

Aphrodite

Hey will this work if the mobile is in a diffrent country ? For example. I am in Canada but my friend i wanna email/text live in the U.S. Can i use this method for that ?

@Aphrodite: I believe most or all of the wireless carriers in that list are in the USA. It makes no difference where in the world you are when you send the text message from your email account. So yes, you should be able to use this method.

Huskers

It didn’t work for me, I have At&t.

Huskers

It did work for me after all. There is just a LONG delay….takes about 3o minutes to reach the recipent.

Evgeniy

I so sent earlier messages. But became now cheap to call if to use ip a telephony with a call back and consequently sms from the computer I do not send. Thanks for the information

Danielle

im texting a at&t phone and there getting my text and texting back but im not getting the text in my email. ive texted verizon and boost mobile and i get the text back just fine. y am i not getting text back from at&t phones.

DT

I’m sure you’ve gotten answers about this by now, but have you asked the person who received the text what they see in the “From” area? I did this last night and along with seeing my e-mail address, they also saw a 4-digit code. Although they can also respond to your e-mail, he saved just this 4-digit code into his phone as my e-mail address and sent me a text. I actually got it just fine. I was shocked! Since this is new to me, I don’t know if that 4-digit code is assigned to just that recipient, my particular e-mail or my mail/internet account with TWC (roadrunner). I’ll have to send text messages to a few more friends to find out if the 4-digit code stays the same to each one of them and I also have more than one e-mail so I’ll see if the code changes when my e-mail changes. This is really cool. Thanks!

pinkbikester

What about Credo Mobile? Anybody know the domain for text via email with them?

Aron

thanks very usefull information !

katw

anyone know how to text to BOOST mobile numbers?

guy4761

hey my gf yell at me cause she said that they were charging her for emails and they weren’t counted towards in coming texts… she has Verizon… so i don’t know… she might be lieing to me…. sigh

Gilbert

hi I have texted an at&t phone and it doesn’t work?? All other companies work but that one everytime I text it sends me a message instantly saying the message didnt go through if you guys have any answers please email me at [email protected] thanks

qwerty

We’ll you have a yahoo. I believe you need a gmail to send as sms through gmail

qwerty

*Well

John

Fot AT&T use the number and @mms.att.net

Leo

Try postmytext.com it has all this built in

bryan

CREDO is apparently using Sprint:

[phonenumber]@messaging.sprintpcs.com

James

This works. I just tried it (I have a CREDO Mobile cell phone.)

leen

christ,
i’m from malaysia and i’m not sure my service provider really have this service and i dont know what to add at the back of my phone no.(i mean for example [email protected]??????.com).can u help me?
p/s:sorry for my rotten english

I am using a Digicel (phone comapny) phone in Papua new Ginea but unable to get the carrier’s email to sms domain name..
I ma trying to sms afreind using my gmail but cannot becaust I dont know my carrirers
‘s sms domain name..

Mobile company is Digicel

Please can one brillant person help me on this?
Thanksyou

JMaiapu

Josey

Cool. Worked for me. Thanks!

pete

If someone less familiar to me sends a text and I want to respond through my email, is there any way for me to determine who there carrier might be so as to key in one of the 12 plus carrier addresses?

my daughter is using a phone from Safelink wireless which is part of Tracfone. How can I send her a text?

Missy

I want to send a text message via me using email. So if i send that person a text from my email, he will get it? Will it COST him to reply? Or will it COST me to send it? Thanks!

Marc

Data24-7 provides a service which will look-up the carriers for your phone numbers and provide you with the proper SMS and MMS email addresses. It’s number portability aware, so if someone changes carriers, the change will be reflected in the service within an hour. They have an API, or you can upload files of phone numbers to be processed. The website is http://www.data24-7.com.

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